Star Trek: The Next Generation Fired a Fan Favorite Character Only To Rehire Her Later

A quick glance at the news is enough to see how poorly actresses, directors, and other industry professionals are treated. All of the major scandals, which are coming to light more frequently than ever before, only add to the pile of allegations.

Unfortunately, back in the 80s, the situation was even worse. Three decades ago, the choice between a female and a male crew member on a production set wasn't even considered to be a hard choice. You could’ve counted on a man to stay, and a woman to be written off.

As the case of Star Trek: The Next Generation's star Gates McFadden shows, it was just much easier to get rid of the "too opinionated" actress than to fire a sexist writer.

The reason for such a decision was very simple: the showrunners felt that the show already had too many women, and no one wanted to watch them. Getting rid of someone who was getting in the way of production wasn't seen as a big loss for the show.

That's what McFadden herself said in her interview with SBS when the discussion turned to another female character, Denise Crosby's Tasha Yar. She pointed out how few scenes the actresses had with each other, and how unimportant their characters felt with no connection with male characters on the screen.

Although there have been many positive changes in the way women are treated in the entertainment industry over the past few decades, there is still a long way to go before we have a sexism-free community and completely safe workplaces.

The best part of this overall frustrating story is that McFadden's Dr. Beverly Crusher was brought back only a year after she was originally fired. The viewers made it very clear that they favored the actress and wanted to see more of her, so the decision needed to change.

And it did! Thanks to the support of both the fans of the series and the co-stars, Gates McFadden was brought in for season 3 and stayed until its very finale in 1994. If a story like that could have a happy ending, that would certainly be the one.

If you want to re-watch the classic series Star Trek: The Next Generation and freshen up your memory of Dr. Beverly Crusher, you can stream the series on Netflix. Paramount Plus or Amazon Prime Video.

Source: SBS